The discount applies until the end of July, as stated in the email and the help page. However you can buy up to 3 years subscription up front.

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Originally Posted by brownb2

On the basic account does 50% off + 14.95 credit I originally paid mean I get the first year ($30) nearly free?

We've credited $15 instead of $14.95 so that yes, you can get 1 year basic for free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by brownb2

What guarantees are there about pulling the plug if I stop paying again in future (due to lack of funds etc)? I am currently guaranteed FM won't delete my data I would like this to continue (but expect no email sending/receiving)

As with all accounts, if an account expires due to non-renewal we first shut off sending, then bounce mail, then prevent login, and eventually all data will be deleted.

In business, there is no imminent prospect of email dying out, but I am not sure about the longer term even there. The increasing use of collaboration software, supporting teams including both internal and external participants, is supplanting email markedly in some organizations. We shall see.

I agree with your points about personal use to some degree, but a lot of younger folks also don't yet live in a "professional" world where things still rely heavily on traditional email. In other words, it's dying off for interpersonal communication, certainly, but for professional communications I don't see it going away any time soon.... Can I get my household bills sent to me on Facebook or Twitter? What about travel itineraries, online order receipts, communications with accounts, lawyers, etc?

The main reason I don't see email dying off even in the corporate space any time soon — regardless of what businesses may choose to go with internally is that it's the single, common standard that you can use to communicate with almost anybody on the planet. Picture a world where Microsoft Exchange users could only communicate with other Microsoft Exchange users, and Slack users could only communicate with other Slack users, and Google Apps users could only communicate with other Google Apps users.

Maybe someday, some organization will come up with a whole new open standard for Internet communications, but since there's little "profit" in that, I'm not holding my breath; everything that's been done for the past 20 years is individual companies trying to push their own proprietary communication systems in hopes that they can "wag the dog" and get the whole world to adopt their system.

IMO, FastMail should suggest Member plan holders can keep their plan, as long as they accept their accounts to be moved over to the unstable / early beta / experimental source code branch. This way members could keep their plan while helping FastMail try out new features, also potentially (sometimes controversially) new user interfaces.

IMO, FastMail should suggest Member plan holders can keep their plan, as long as they accept their accounts to be moved over to the unstable / early beta / experimental source code branch. This way members could keep their plan while helping FastMail try out new features, also potentially (sometimes controversially) new user interfaces.

Bill, as I mentioned before, what is most important legally is the terms and conditions at the time the Member accounts were purchased. You cannot unilaterally change the agreement by subsequently putting up a webpage....

I think under Australian consumer law that if the TOC's change,and the old TOC's are not being grandfathered, and the customer is materially negatively affected by the change, then the supplier is obligated to offer the customer the option to exit at no cost to the customer, or accept the new terms.
This happens very regularly on phone and internet plans.

With regard to lifetime guarantees, I think this comes under the terms of an Express guarantee, and if it cannot be met within the terms of the contract, then a refund is normally the remedy.

(I am not a lawyer and the above might be wrong. This is not legal advice. I try to keep abreast of consumer law that applies to me.)

I'm actually amazed that Fastmail has provided many years of service (over a decade in some cases) to Guest and Member accounts for no ongoing fees, far exceeding what I assert would be normal expectations for a service which has continued across two ownership changes.

Fastmail users were sent an email in April 2010 informing them that the TOS were changing due to their sale to Opera. I just re-read that email.

And then in October 2013 Fastmail staff purchased the company back from Opera, and the TOS changed again. Customers were offered a chance to discontinue the service when those changes occurred.

Of course, all Fastmail account holders had to agree to the TOS when they obtained their account and when the ownership changed, and the TOS speaks for itself.

The Fastmail TOS are not too long. Nothing in these terms seems to me to be unusual, and to my knowledge all email and similar services include terms which allow termination of accounts or any other changes to the service as desired by the service provider. No warranty was implied.

Fastmail is now offering to give those with Member accounts credits so they can get a one year Basic current account, good through July 2018. This means that some early Member accounts will get the following amazing deal at no current cost (using that $15 they spent so long ago). I really can't imagine how they could be more generous.

15 years of simple email service with 16 MB of storage.

1 year of the latest Fastmail Basic account service (worth $30), with 2 GB of storage and all of the latest features (calendar, address book, etc.).

I got my fastmail Member account in 2002. I have used it as my primary email address ever since, and I have mostly been very happy with the service.

When I got this account, I could have gotten a free email address from another provider like mail.com instead, but since I liked fastmail's interface and I wanted an email address that would be mine for life, I chose to pay the $15. I also paid for some storage upgrades so that I could save more than the included 16MB of old email.

I was annoyed when they later stopped allowing me to buy further storage upgrades, but at least I still have a functional account that works well.

1. Some of you claimed that fastmail never offered a lifetime membership. That is simply not true. Look at their pricing page from 2002:

which says, regarding their Full and Enhanced accounts, "* - Includes lifetime 'Member' account if subscription not renewed."

2. Many of you don't seem to understand the concept of a contract. Fastmail chose to offer a lifetime account for $15. They didn't have to do that; they did it to earn money so they could continue to stay in business. I chose to buy it because I thought it was a good offer even though most other email providers were, then as now, free. I would never have bought it if I had any inkling that they might someday start asking me to pay for it, because (1) I knew that most other email accounts were free, and (2) I had already previously gotten burned when I had to stop using a school email address after graduating and I found out how hard it was to get everyone you know to switch to using a new email address. I figured that paying a modest amount for a lifetime account was better than signing up for a free one that might not last as long.

I did *not* buy the right to keep the account until they decided they didn't feel like supporting it any more. I did *not* buy the right to keep the account until they decided to refund my $15. I bought the right to have an account that I could keep for life. Later I encouraged my wife to do the same. Now fastmail is trying to renege on their promise to support those accounts and extort further payments from myself and my wife to avoid the significant effort and problems that would be caused by trying to get everyone to start using some other email addresses for us.

3. Some of you pointed to some legalistic terms of service on fastmail's current site. None of this is applicable to my purchase in 2002, because none of that was on their site then. The only thing like that at the time was a disclaimer (http://web.archive.org/web/200210160...isclaimer.html) saying that they aren't responsible for damages caused by any defects in their service.

4. Some of you seem to think that charging recurring fees for email is somehow good business or inevitable or whatever. None of this justifies breach of contract.

In my opinion, fastmail should be *really grateful* to the people who paid for member accounts and kept them afloat when they were a small startup company. Without us they wouldn't have survived. Since then, they have succeeded in selling more expensive, recurring-fee services. Good for them. The least they can do is continue to support Member accounts for the lifetimes of their owners. Ideally, they should also continue to support Guest accounts as long as their users log in once every 120 days, which was what they have always said they would do. It's called keeping your promises. It's called being grateful to your early adopters. It's also known as good customer relations and good business.

They wrote "Given the limited number of remaining 'Member' users we have decided to no longer support this account type to help simplify our internal architecture." Sorry, fastmail, you have no right to decide that given the fact that you sold lifetime accounts to your Member users. If it's too much work to keep supporting a separate Member level, you could simply change our accounts to be free Basic accounts. If it's too hard to keep track of who has to pay for a Basic account and who gets it for free, you could give us paid Basic accounts that happen to be pre-paid for 100 years.

Am I going to go to the effort of bringing a class action lawsuit against a small company to keep my email address? No. Am I going to submit to fastmail's extortion and start paying them an annual fee of their choosing for the right to keep my email address alive after I already paid them for the right to keep my email address alive for life? I haven't decided. But whoever at fastmail is making me decide this should be hanging their heads in shame.

And whoever on this board is making excuses for their extortion doesn't understand the concept of a contract.

The Service is offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices contained herein.

Quote:

IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ANY PORTION OF THE SERVICE, OR WITH ANY OF THESE TERMS OF USE, YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE USING THE SERVICE AND ITS RELATED WEB SITES.

Quote:

FastMail.FM may terminate your access to any part or all of the Service and any related service(s) at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately, for any reason whatsoever.

Quote:

FastMail.FM reserves the right to change the TOS or policies regarding the use of the Service at any time and to notify you by posting an updated version of the TOS on this Web site. You are responsible for regularly reviewing the TOS. Continued use of the Service after any such changes shall constitute your consent to such changes.

So I agree that you saw the "lifetime" Member offer in 2002. But that account type won't be available later this year, and Fastmail has chosen to terminate your account.

I haven't received the upgrade emails, but just noticed that both Member and Guest accounts get a 50% discount on any current plan until 08/14/2017. And Members get an additional $15 discount. So Fastmail is giving those account holders an amazing gift if they purchase an upgrade by 8/14/2017.

I haven't received the upgrade emails, but just noticed that both Member and Guest accounts get a 50% discount on any current plan until 08/14/2017. And Members get an additional $15 discount. So Fastmail is giving those account holders an amazing gift if they purchase an upgrade by 8/14/2017.

While this is very true, it has nothing to do with the fact that these old member accounts will now be discontinued.

Many of the folk who hold member accounts (which were promised to never cease) are not at all interested in upgrading.

Though I cancelled my own member account, because of its limitations, I can see their point.